Fox and Lucasfilm Ltd and STAR WARS TRILOGY DVD - - - HELP! lol

Ok I need your help...again. lol. Fox and Lucasfilm, as I'm sure you all know, are responsible for the Star Wars films. Well, I have a meeting in two weeks regarding initial pre-production for the Star Wars trilogy on DVD. Fox/Lucasfilm are asking several studio heads and DVD designers for input in regards to special features that consumers want on their DVDs. My company is sending me to this meeting because of our (yours and mine) success with Universal Studios.

So since y'all helped before, I thought you might like to chip in your thoughts again. This time I need just a few things.

1) If deleted scenes were to be added to the films, would you prefer a separate Deleted Scenes menu, scene branching (meaning the scenes are seamlessly inserted into the film where they would have been), or both options.

2) A featurette showing the new technologies that were created for the special effects in the all 3 films.

3) A brief history of Lucasfilm, THX and ILM (Industrial Light and Magic), and the relationship between those companies and Fox.

4) Premiere and film hype. Footage, toys, sci-fi/Star Wars conventions, etc.

5) Commentary featuring just George Lucas, just Special Effects wizards, just the actors looking back (retrospective commentary), or all the above.

6) Isolated John Williams music score. As well as a behind-the-scenes feature on composing the score.

7) A look into the 3 remaining chapters of the 9 that Lucas has said he will not do.

8) The name of the collection. i.e. Ultimate Edition, 5 Star Edition, Set of a Lifetime (LOL), etc.


Ok - that's all I need. Let me make sure to say that this in no way means that the set is due out anytime soon. This is just a forum where Fox/Lucasfilm will draw together opinions and ideas based on consumer suggestion.

If you have any other ideas or suggestions, feel free to include them and I'll address them at the meeting. The meeting will be two weeks from this Friday, so hopefully we have plenty of time to get a lot of stuff together.

Thanks so much.
Laurie

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Well, I would wish that the option of watching the non-Special Edition version of the movies should be a choice.

But as for the questions, I prefer the separate menus rather than branching for the deleted scenes. I'm not a fan of branching since it isn't seemless enough yet (that I've seen). If they're going to have a branching option, I would hope they'd have the separate menu option, too.

I don't know that I have an opinion on the other stuff.

Honestly, I don't know if this is helpful, but those features are ALL cool. They would all improve the disc. If you want my opinion on which are the best, I'd put them in this order:

• 5 (commentary is vital...needs to be film-length! IE: The Usual Suspects.)
• 1 (deleted scenes are great...the option to switch between the two methods is obviously a plus, too)
• 2 (those are always cool)
• 7 (VERY valuable, considering the fact that we won't ever see them. )
• 4 (I love the hype!)
• 3 (That'd be VERY interesting. Ties into #2 a bit)
• 6 (I love the music!)
• 8 (the set could be called "Purple Monkeys on Parade" for all I care! )

Unfortunately the feature I most want Lucas has said in recent years he will not present: the three original films in their original theatrical cuts. Call me a purist or whatever, but I HATED the Special Editions (especially for the original Star Wars, where some condescending P.C. moral 'corrections' were made). Around the time the so-called Special Editions were released, Lucas intonated that they would be the ONLY versions available in the future. If he sticks to that, it's too damn bad, and honestly I wouldn't even buy the DVDs.

As for a commentary track, it would be nice, but the stuff on the LD set from the late '90s was not only spotty (minutes and minutes of dead air), but also incredibly dry. Lucas comments were not even scene-specific, but edited from previous interviews. *yawn* Definitely include at least some of the actors, and say Larry Kasdan for Empire.

Bootlegs of the audition tapes, with eventual cast memebrs such as Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill along side actors who didn't make the cut including Robby Benson, Charles Martin Smith and Amy Irving, have been circulating for years. Finally including this material in an official Lucas-sanctioned release would be nice. That kind of history of the film interests me much more than how many models in what various sizes they needed to make of the Mellinium Falcon.



I suspect I'm going to be holding onto my LaserDiscs for quite a while, and if the original cuts aren't included on DVD, maybe indefinitely.

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1) Both!

2) Yes, definitely! As a special effects nut I would love to know how all the technology evolved.

3) YES!

4) YES!..especially because that Lucas pioneered the toy to movie market.

5) I think George should get his own...other than that, maybe a colaboration of other people all commentating at the same time.

6) YES!

7) YES!...that would be the ultimate!

8) I think the name should be something simple. Like "SW"...it doesn't need a hyped up title, the work put into these discs should get the attention, not the title.


Please keep us posted on developments on this!
Steve

It would be nice to see a little featurette on how they cleaned up the 3 movies for the Special Edition. Deleted scenes would be nice, but have a selection where you could play all of them, and maybe a little intro and outro as to where this scene would have been in the movie(Sixth Sense did this).

Don't call it a 5 star collection or whatever, cause then they're gonna do that dizzying shiny silver cover on it. Won't be ULTIMATE until all 6 movies are released.

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I like Ultimate Collection as a name...

All of those features would be nice, but I too never saw the originials, well I have, but having those on DVD would be alot better. Why don't they put out an original set, and a special edition set? Too much cost I guess.

Seperate menus for deleted scenes would be alot better, when their intergrated I honestly have a hard time noticing them...Unless I've seen the movie a thousand times.

Commentary would be cool, but only if interesting and if laid ontop of the sound track..ie like in Final Destination. The movies are long enough already, commentary that is broing is just gonna bring it down.

Oh, and I personally don't care about the history of Lucas Film. I wouldn't want to read about them, its boring. That may just be me though.

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I could really care less about features. As long as the three movies were on DVD would satisfy me enough.

Ok I've got everyone's suggestions. I think a 3 disc set per movie would be sweet. One disc is the original, one disc is the redo, and the third disc is the special features disc with all the goodies on it. This way Lucas could concentrate on using a high bit rate to give us the best possible audio and visual, but still give us the extras on the 3rd disc.

Any other ideas?

That's a killer idea...the best of both worlds. Very sweet idea...

Great idea!

that might get a bit expensive though...